Maid Margaret wanted much more. She began to express her wants in terms of candies and chocolates.
"Candies!" cried Mrs. Donnan; "why, if I weren't so busy, I would make you two candy to dream about—and of those very cocoa-nuts too!"
"Do—oh, do make us some!"
"Well, come into the bakehouse, and we shall see!"
They went, Elizabeth Fortinbras and I smilingly assisting with the bags of nuts. Elizabeth could not be spared out of the front shop, but I stopped to watch, and of course Sir Toady and Maid Margaret pushed and elbowed for good front seats.
Mrs. Donnan, quietly smiling as ever, seized a skewer, and with several skillful taps made a hole in the end of the nut through which she let the milk drop into a basin. Then with a heavy hammer she smashed the shell into pieces.
It was a good nut, even as Sir Toady had prophesied. He had been well taught at the canteen.
"Now," said thecordon bleuof Edam, "who wants to do a bit of grating for me?"
"I"—"I," shouted the children, and though I did not shout, I was really as ready as any one. The white inside was dealt out to us, and while the Maid and Sir Toady went at it (sometimes scraping their fingers by way of variety), a respectable pile of soft flaky nut, cream-colored and nice, began to appear.
When we were finished, Mrs. Donnan went to a bag, and measured out two tablespoonfuls of white sugar to each one of the nut-flake, dropped the whole into a sizeable patty pan, and poured the milk of the cocoa-nut over it.
With Mrs. Donnan stirring hard, the whole was soon bubbling away cheerfully—indeed, boiling like what lava does in a volcano (ought to, at any rate), the bubbles bursting, and the nice smell making your teeth water, so that it did not seem that you could ever wait for it to cool.
Then, just when the bubbles began to burst with a warning "pop," Mrs. Donnan turned everything into a well-buttered shallow dish. It made a cake about as thick as your finger, and oh, but the smell was good! But she laid the dish away in the ice-house—as she said, to cool. Really, I think, to keep us from temptation, and prevent too early experimenting upon the result.
Elizabeth Fortinbras would have none of us (not even me) in the front shop that day. She was too busy. So, after one question put and answered (it was about Hugh John), the three of us went out and walked in the garden till the ice-house had done its work.
Well, do you know, that candy was famous. Just you try it, with the explanations I have given you! It goes all right, you will find, and no mistake.
Indeed, so well did it go that a bargain was soon struck, and Elizabeth's clever fingers were busy printing out a placard:
Cut into cubes, the result was certainly fascinating. Even Fuz was tempted to try. He came to scoff, but he remained to suck.
"Now, didn't I tell you!" said Sir Toady, when on the morrow he received twelve silver shillings as his share of the venture from the careful hands of Mrs. Donnan. "Never you grumble about your Admiral Tuppens again. There you are! More cocoa-nut candy than we can eat before next Friday, warranted wholesome by Fuz, and six bob apiece to do what we like with! How about your old half-a-crown now?"
And the Maid was properly subdued, as, indeed, she ought to have been. Sir Toady did not mention that without Mrs. Donnan he would have been a very sorrowful investor indeed.
But then, male things love to take all the credit to themselves. Bless you, they can't help it! It's born in them, like polywogs in ponds.
November 23.
We have had our first frost early this year—four days' skating on the High Pond before the middle of November! But it was sad to see the poor folks' corn still out, the stalks, stiffly frozen, piercing the couple of inches of frozen sleet that covers the ground.
They have had harvest festivals down in the town churches. But Fuz said that if they had taken up collections to help pay the farmers' rents,thatwould have been the best sort of festival, and he would have attended. As it was he stopped away, so as to let in somebody who was grateful for a late harvest and spoilt crops!
Fuz says that it is no use sending theMonthly Visitorto people who don't have a daily dinner, and that anything he has to spare will go towards the dinners. But then, Fuz does not mean all he says. For though he growls at the Tract Distributors, he always finishes by giving something so that they will not go sorry away.
Elizabeth Fortinbras goes to the shop opposite the Market Hill every day. She has a nice gray dress now which she made herself, a water-proof cloak, and a pretty canoeing hat. She is quite ignorant of all that the good people are getting ready to offer her. Will she accept? Possibly Hugh John could tell. CertainlyIcan't.
The young couple down town have come home—Meg Linwood and her husband Nipper, I mean. His father has explained the situation very sharply to him—that is, in so far as the business is concerned. I think he is waiting about the house and furniture till Elizabeth has said "yes" or "no."
It is a good time to tell about our churches. Ours is the nicest. For though we are not compelled to go to any particular one, yet Somebody thinks it is a kind of point of honor to attend the one in which we were born and brought up. There are all sorts of things going on, too, and young people who don't have parties and dances get to know each other atsoiréesand social meetings. It acts just the same—even quicker, I have noticed. They get married to each other all the same.
Hugh John, who has studied the subject, says he can stand all sorts of "flirts," except the one who asks you about your soul before she knows whethershehas got one herself!
Now there is Thomasina Morton, the doctor's daughter, and a smart girl too. Only she never could get away from two or three catchwords, caught up from all sorts of people. She got fearfully anxious about the souls of all the good-looking young men, and made them come into her father's consulting-room so that she could "plead with them." Of course it was all very good and, I dare say, most necessary, but Idon'tthink it was fair on Dr. Morton. You see, he is a good man, but much exposure to all sorts of weather has told on his temper, and really I can't blame him for what he said when he stumbled upon one of these reunions in the dusk of a November afternoon. It was Billy Jackson's legs he fell over, and they say Billy has had to walk with a stick ever since.
But Thomasina declared that her father was hard-hearted, and even went to consult her minister about it. But Mr. Taylor is a sensible man, and said that thirty years of Dr. Morton's life would weigh against a good deal of strongish language in the archangel's scales! He also asked Thomasina where her father had been that day, and she said, "Out seeing his country patients, since eight in the morning!" Then Mr. Taylor asked who they were, and Thomasina told him.
"The Doctor knows as well as I do," he said, "that he will never see a penny of fees from any of them. Don't you trouble, my young lady, about the hardness of your father's heart. And tell Mr. William Jackson that it will be more suitable for him to come and seemeabout his soul. I am at his service from eight till ten every evening—except Wednesday and Saturday!"
I don't know if Billy Jackson felt that this was not quite the same thing, or whether the minister's hours did not suit him. At all events he never went.
Thomasina Morton, however, was not pleased with Mr. Taylor, and left his church. She joined the Salvation Army, but soon left it, because she found the costume unbecoming. She did better as a nurse, and had splendid chances there. Because, you see, the dress was all right, and her patients could not get up and run when she had them good and safe within the four walls of an hospital!
I dare say, however, it helped to pass the time for the poor fellows. For, you see, Thomasina was pretty, and knew it. She would sing sad, faint, die-away hymns in the twilight, till she made these bad young men just lie down and cry. They were generally pretty weak, anyway, especially when Thomasina used to talk to them about their mothers. (When they were well, you might have talked those mothers' heads off without reforming their sons the value of a row of pins.) But Thomasina talked to them in a dreamy voice, till they all were willing to go out as missionaries to the most cannibal-haunted regions—that is, if only Thomasina would come along with them.
But when they asked her, as they mostly did, Thomasina said she was very sorry, but she had never meant it that way. She was "vowed to a vocation," and mere commonplace marriage would be sinful. Besides (mostly), the young men had nothing to keep themselves on—much less a wife.
Oh, Thomasina made the winter very cheerful at Edam, especially after the Cottage Hospital was opened, and the cutting of the new railway brought a good many into the accident ward.
To listen to Thomasina (and believe her), all these, though mere "navvies" now, were Oxford or Cambridge men, and either the sons of purple Indian colonels, very peppery, or (which she preferred) of white-haired old clergymen, who were never known to smile again after their only sons had left the family roof-tree.
Surely there was a lack of imagination in that accident ward. Hugh John would have made cartloads of plans, and as for Sir Toady—well, he could have evolved something fresh each journey, and never charged a penny extra. He would have been ashamed of so many colonels and white-haired clergymen.
But Thomasina was quite content, and read all manner of nice uninteresting books to the poor storm-stayed ones, who sometimes looked at the angelic expression on her face, and sometimes had quite a decent little sleep on the quiet. Her voice was naturally soothing.
Thus time passed none so evilly in the Cottage Hospital accident ward, and Thomasina came and got nice jellies from Mrs. Donnan, very sustaining, and "let on," as Sir Toady asserted, that she had made them all herself! But there is more—oh, ever so much more about Thomasina Morton. I hope you are not tired hearing about her—I am not of telling.
But you will see the funny thing that happened. Among all the imaginary sons of purple colonels and sad, saintly clergymen whom Thomasina had corralled into her hospital ward, there happened to be a real one. His name, he said, was Henry Smith—which is just one of those names that people take, like Jones and Wood and Robinson in England, and Dubois, Durand, Duval in France, thinking to be unknown, and lo! every hotel-keeper and policeman immediately is on the qui vive to find out what bank they have robbed.
Well, this young fellow's real name did not matter to anybody. Thomasina called him "dear Harry," and had him to sit beside her in the dining-room of the convalescent home (one of her pet hunting-grounds). And one day after he had been in training to be good for quite a while, he came in to dinner as usual, and, just as he was sitting down at the table, up jumps Master Harry Smith and bolts out of the room! Naturally enough, Nurse Webb thought there was something wrong with him, and would have gone to see, but Thomasina restrained her with a motion of the hand—very solemn, impressive, and "I-know-all-about-it-if-you-don't!"
"He has forgotten to say his prayers!" she whispered. "He promised me!"
And Nurse Webb sank back appalled, wondering what they would have said at "King's." But Thomasina was quite calm, and laid her hand soothingly on that of "dear Harry" when he returned from his (very short) devotions.
And do you know, all the time he was what Sir Toady calls "a regular rip." Only he was a real colonel's son, and had been tried everywhere—only no one would have him about on any account.
But old Dr. Morton did what Thomasina said, and got this young fellow dressed out in new clothes, till he looked as smart as a paper of new pins. Then who so proud as Thomasina! She was so glad that Harry had turned out so well that she said she would marry him. Then he was fearfully noble, and said that he wasn't worthy of her, but that he would wait for the day when he would lay the world at her feet. Oh, he said ever such a heap of what the boys call, with a certain rude correctness, "tommy-rot."
And old Papa Morton got him a place in a ginger-beer factory, to manage the accounts, where Mr. Harry Smith behaved pretty well for three months. But on the eve of his marriage with Thomasina he disappeared, taking with him a whole fortnight's wages of the ginger-beer factory workmen.
Instead, he left a letter full of consolatory texts for Thomasina, which I would quote, but Fuz says I must not. Only he concluded by saying that his dear Tommy was not half a bad little thing, only her company and conversation were wearing for a man of his tastes and antecedents. If she had only seen her way to giving him a "let up" every ten days or so, he might have stayed on. But as it was, there was nothing left for him but to borrow her father's fur-lined overcoat, and bid Thomasina a long, last farewell through floods of burning tears. She was to remember, however, that, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, he was ever her own Harry. Also that the next time he needed nursing and advice, both of superior quality, he would not fail to think of the happy days in the convalescent ward of Edam Borough Hospital.
"Harry Smith" was seen no more on Esk waterside, and by last accounts Dr. Morton is still awaiting the return of his fur-lined overcoat.
I don't think that Dr. Morton ever really got over the loss of his fur-lined overcoat. You see, it gave him a tone, making many a suffering household feel quite chirpy and consoled only to see him getting carefully out of his gig, and laying back the lapels so as to show the best pieces of fur. But he was never the same man in plain tweed, even when he took to a high velvet collar. People had not the old confidence. He had two favorite methods of treatment—leeches and fly-blisters—and when he began to leech the blister people and blister the leech people, all felt that the end was near.
So Mr. Liddesdale persuaded him to sell his practice while he had one to sell—the stock of leeches and Spanish flies being taken at a valuation. So there came a young doctor to Edam, and his name was Dr. Weir Douglas. At first it was feared that he would not be a success, because he went about in gray tweeds and a straw hat. Worse than all, he made 84 in the cricket match against Lockermaben. This showed how little serious he could be, and how little he had to do in his profession. Dr. Morton was often called out of church twice on the same Sunday, and though everybody knew that he kept a boy for the purpose, yet, after all, the summons might be real. No one could tell. At any rate it waked up a sleepy congregation better than peppermint drops, and people whispered that it must be Sandy Paterson's wife, or that loon of Jock Malcolm's who was always climbing and coming to grief.
However, when Jock Malcolm did fall from the scaffolding of the Established Church (then being repaired parsimoniously by reluctant heritors) Dr. Weir Douglas saved the boy's life by carrying him to his own house across the way, and, after setting the shoulder, sent to ask Miss Thomasina Morton to come over and nurse Master Jock Malcolm.
Then the whole village of Edam began to respect Dr. Morton, calling him "cunning old rascal," and other terms of admiration. Indeed, they respected him for the first time in their lives. Had he not got a good price for his practice, and would not Thomasina do the rest? Indeed, the marriage of Thomasina and Dr. Weir Douglas was regarded on all hands as a settled thing. Any one else in Edam (except perhaps our Hugh John) would have been considered fair game for jest, and congratulated fifty times in a day. But somehow Dr. Weir Douglas did not look the kind of man to be too familiar with, even in a straw hat and gray tweeds—just as no one would take a liberty with our Hugh John in a clown's dress at a fancy ball, if the mind of man can conceive such a thing. Even there, he would probably be found in a retired corner with the prettiest girl (if she were tall and pale and willowy), instructing her on the chances of Siam becoming a second Japan, the resurrection of the Further East, the probability of a Russian Anarchist Republic, and other topics especially adapted for a ball-room. Whereas Sir Toady—but perhaps the less said about that the better. If he had not told at least five girls that they were the prettiest in the room, the young man would have felt that he had thrown away his chances, an accident against which he carefully guarded himself.
But to return to the nursing of Master Jock Malcolm—now become so important and necessary a link in the chain of events. Edam gave Thomasina twenty-four hours to bring the young doctor to his knees. But Dr. Weir Douglas spoiled all calculations by charging his coachman's wife to look after the comfort of Miss Morton, and taking up his own quarters for the time being at the Edam Arms, opposite!
The entire village agreed that this was not playing the game, and as for Thomasina, she felt that never in the world had there been such a reprobate. She placed tracts in his way. She scattered them all about the house, and neglected her patient to think out plans for wrestling with this stiff-necked and rebellious young man.
In the meantime, however, Dr. Weir Douglas began to gain on Edam. Certainly he made a wonderful cure of Jock Malcolm, junior—a young rascal who deserved no such spoiling as he was receiving. He even asked the advice and assistance of his distinguished colleague Dr. Morton, making it a favor that in the meantime he should return to the house which had been his own for so many years. It was really much too large for a bachelor, and Dr. Weir Douglas would consider it a favor to have it taken care of. He himself was perfectly comfortable at the Edam Arms. This, however, could not last for ever.
The whole village was more certain than ever that Thomasina and he were "going to make a match of it." It was just at this critical time that Hugh John came home on holiday for Christmas and New Year.
I was exceedingly interested to see how these two would get on—the Doctor and Hugh John, I mean. Because my brother is by no means universally amiable, and the new arrival, for all his generosity, carried a good deal of "side"—or at least what seemed so to the Edam people. They did not understand his "antiseptics," the boiling of his medical scissors, his multipled sprayings, andminimaof medicines. A whacking black draught, and a fly-blister the size of theScotsmannewspaper, were the popular idea of what a real doctor ought to prescribe. Who would pay a man just to come and look at them? Certainly not the people of Edam.
I was present when Hugh John and Dr. Weir Douglas met for the first time. In fact, I made the introduction. I was interested to see what Dr. Douglas would make of Hugh John. For if he treated him like a schoolboy, all was over.
It was in our drawing-room. Somebody had had his little afternoon nap over Froude'sHistory of England—volume eight. Now if you ask Somebody how long Somebody has slept, Somebody will answer that Somebodymayjust have dropped off for five minutes. The Doctor had come in to call socially. You see, I had met him at the Tennis Club. Well, Somebody was quite pleased with him because he had read "Froude," and for a while he did not notice the big, gray-eyed boy on the window-seat who had risen at his entrance and then as quietly sat down again.
But I said, "Doctor—my brother Hugh John!"
Then Hugh John loomed up, with that quiet gravity which deceives strangers sometimes, his finger still keeping the place in William'sMiddle Kingdom, and his eyes meeting those of the Doctor level as the metals on a straight run of the railway line.
The Doctor was ready to pass the lad in order to talk with Somebody—who, as usual, lay back looking amused. But that arresting something in Hugh John's eyes, a mixture of equality and authority, halted him, as it has done so many others.
"You are reading?" said the Doctor civilly.
"Oh, no," said Hugh John, "just picking out favorite bits. Do you knowThe Middle Kingdom?"
NowThe Middle Kingdomis an exceedingly fine book, highly technical in parts, and has to do with China. So it is no wonder that it was not so familiar to a man who for years has had to specialize on surgery as it was to the omnivorous Hugh John.
Dr. Weir Douglas shook his head as he glanced over the volume.
"It looks very stiff," he remarked; "are you getting it up for an exam.?"
Hugh John looked at him curiously. He did not approve of jests on such subjects. "I read it first when I was about ten," he said. "I only wish exams were as easy."
"Is it 'math'?" the Doctor inquired sympathetically.
"Yes," said Hugh John, "that—and the idiocies of English spelling!"
All this as from man to man, unsmiling, unwinking, each taking the measure of the other.
It came to an end in a mutual self-respect, neither yielding an inch. But the boy knew how to make himself respected as well as the man of thirty. That night they took a long walk together in the crisp black frost, while Dr. Weir Douglas talked of "microbes," and Hugh John expounded Chinese transcendental medicine. But the real respect did not arrive till, passing the darkened library as they returned, the Doctor said, "I hear you do something with the gloves. What do you say to a turn?"
"Step in!" said Hugh John.
What passed I do not know, but when he went away the Doctor said, "I really think those gloves of yours are two or three ounces too light!"
It was the next day that Hugh John, summoned into solemn council by Butcher Donnan and his wife, was informed what was expected of him in the matter of Elizabeth Fortinbras. Luckily I was again present, and so can tell all about it.
Hugh John was not surprised. He was the Red Indian of the family. He took it as quite natural that he should be called in, quite natural that such good luck should befall Elizabeth Fortinbras, and entirely reasonable that he should be chosen as plenipotentiary.
Now and then he asked a question, unexpectedly acute, as to Nipper's financial position, and how the proposed arrangement with Elizabeth would affect him. You would have thought it was Nipper's case he was advocating. Only I know that he was anxious to keep clear of all injustice before taking the matter in hand.
"And suppose Elizabeth gets married?"
I saw the two Donnans look one at the other. I don't think either had yet considered the matter in this light. To adopt Elizabeth meant to adopt any possible husband Elizabeth might take to herself. I could tell from Butcher Donnan's twinkle that he was envisaging the possibility of having Hugh John as a son-in-law—by adoption. Hugh John was still an unknown quantity to the good pastry-cook. He would never understand the delicate detachment of the friendship of Elizabeth Fortinbras and my brother.
"We hope," said Butcher Donnan cunningly, "that you will let us keep Elizabeth for a long time, Mr. Hugh John?"
The boy took the words perfectly seriously and with no personal bearing.
"Elizabeth," he answered, "is a very pretty girl, but I shall do my best. At any rate she is sure to consult me before doing anything rash—like getting married, I mean!"
There was something about Hugh John which kept any one from laughing at him, and accordingly Butcher Donnan refrained.
"You are a confident young man," he said; "at your age I might have had an eye a little wider open for my own good fortune."
"Elizabeth trusts me, and I am her friend!" said Hugh John, as if that settled the whole matter.
"Well, may I be ... blessed!" cried Butcher Donnan. "Off with you, and let us hear what Elizabeth says."
"No," said Hugh John, "it musthappen, not be dragged in by the collar. To-night, after shop-shutting, Elizabeth will go home to see that all is right with her people. I shall walk with her, and tell you what she says in the morning."
"We would rather hear to-night," cried Butcher Donnan, hotly impatient after the manner of his kind.
"No—to-morrow!" pronounced Hugh John. "She ought to have the night to think it over. It wouldn't be fair unless!"
"No more it would, young fellow!" cried Butcher Donnan, clapping Hugh John on the shoulder. "You found us a new business. You are finding us a daughter—perhaps some day——"
"Hush now, Butcher," said his wife, anxious as to what he should say next.
But Hugh John, already deep in his mission, took no offense at Butcher Donnan'sinnuendoes. Elizabeth Fortinbras and he were the best of good friends. And when the time came he would stand by the right hand of the bridegroom of her choice and witness his joy.
So at least he thought at that moment.
Written the Summer we went abroad for the first time.
It was about then that Hugh John suddenly grew up. He had been threatening it for a long time, but had always put it off. This time, however, it was for keeps. We noticed it first when we made Father tell us stories. Hugh John had grown tired of the "Little Green Man"! Now this was a thing so terrible to us that we hardly dared to face it. For, you see, we had been, as it were, brought up on the Little Green Man, and this was like being false to the very salt we had eaten. And the crime was specially bad on Hugh John's part. For, you see, he ate such a lot of salt that the Doctor told him it was bad for his health. However, because there is no chance of Hugh John reading this book, I will try to tell the tale just as Father tells it even yet to Margaret the Maid—and the rest of us who have not grown too old to like such stories.
"Ofcourseit is true," Father always began, "because you know yourselves that you have seen the very place and the Bogle Thorn and all. No doubt everything has shrunk a good deal since the time the story tells about. But that is only because you have grown out of all knowledge, and so everything seems smaller to you."
"I know," cried the Maid, "last year when we came back from the seaside, the Edam Water looked quite small and shallow, even at the first Torres Vedras!"
But Sir Toady nipped her good to make her "shut up"—yes, he had grown so rude in the use of words that that was what he said. But then, most boys are like that. It is school that does it, and, do you know, when they come back they even pervert us girls. That this is true was immediately proved by Maid Margaret giving a fierce kick under the table to Sir Toady, and whispering back, "Shut up yourself!"
But Father went on, never heeding in the least. A father who can be conveniently deaf at times is the best kind. Be sure and take no other! The only genuine has a twinkle in his eye, and a dimple instead of smiling. You will know by that.
"Well, the Little Green Man," Father went on, "lived in the Bogle Thorn on the road between Laurieston and the Duchrae. I used to go that way to school long ago, and at first I was frightened of the Little Green Man. I used to climb the dyke and go right up by the loch on the moor where the curlers played in winter, so as not to be compelled to pass that way. But after a while I got not to mind him a bit. For, you see, he was a good little man, all clad in green velvet tights, and with a broad green bonnet on his head like a peaky toadstool. Once or twice when I caught sight of him up among the branches, he popped into his little house just as quickly as a rabbit into its hole when you say "Scat!" And, you see, when once I was sure that he was frightened ofme, I used not to mind him a bit. Then by and by I used to sit down and swop currants and sugar which I had "found" at home for some of the nuts and lovely spicy fruits that the Little Green Man had stored away. He had the loveliest little parlor and bedrooms all in the inside of the tree, everything finished neat as cabinet-making, and the floor carpeted—you never saw the like—and there were little windows, too, with glass in them, and shutters that shut with the bark outside, so that you never could tell there was a window there at all."
"And how could you see all that, Father?" asked the Maid, who, as usual, was immensely interested, not having heard it above a thousand times before. So it stayed quite new to her.
"Oh," said Father, "the Little Green Man touched a spring, and let me look through the windows. Of course I was too big to get bodily into the inside of the rooms, or run up and down the stairs. But when the Little Green Man got married, he made a beautiful pleasure-ground at the top of his house, with a clipped-hedge parapet all round to keep the Little Green Children from falling over."
"Whom did he marry, Father?" said the Maid though, of course, she knew.
"Why, he married the Little Green Woman," said Father in a tone of surprise mixed with reproof.
He had been asked the same question at least a hundred times before, but he always answered in the same tone of grieved astonishment, which showed how clever he was. For he could not have been astonished—not really, of course. Then he went on with the story of the Little Green Man. The Little Green Man (said he) had a lot of children. There were Toppy, Leafy, Branchy, Twiggy, Flowery, Fruity, and Rooty. That made seven in all, and as they grew up, the Little Green Man made the playground on the top of the Bogle Thorn ever so much bigger. And he built the retaining walls higher, so as to keep them from falling over. Not that that was a very serious matter. For, you see, they could all of them hang on like monkeys. The only two who really ran some risk of danger were Toppy and Rooty. For Toppy, of course, had to stay on top, where he was safest, and knew his way about; and as for Rooty, there was something in his blood that made him want all the time to worm his way down into the hidden places under the earth where nobody but he ever went, and where the corkscrew staircases got perfectly breakneck with steepness. Then, when he found out this, the Little Green Man took Rooty, and gave him regular sound lectures about his "habits"—you know the kind of lecture—you have all got some on your own account. He said that away off on the face of the wild moor, a good bit back from the Bogle Thorn, was the cave of the Ugly Gray Dwarf—so called because that was what he was. He was ugly as a gnarled bit of oak-trunk that they dug up out of the moss. He was gray because he hid among the stones and rocks of the moorland, and, worst of all, he lived on what he could catch to eat—for choice, Little Green Children who had fallen out of tree-tops, or missed their hold of branches, or been naughty and wandered out when a root came to the surface. He had a horrid den where he used to take his prey, and would either roast them before a slow fire, basting them all the time, or else put them into a cauldron of cold water, hung on three sticks, andboil them alive! (Here the Maid always grew very pale, and edged as thickly as she could among the crowd of us, while the boys fingered their (unloaded) revolvers.)
So you can well imagine that it was not always the greatest fun to wander over the face of that moorland, while this cruel monster, dry as a chip, still as one of the bowlders among the heather, and invisible as Will-o'-the-Wisp by day, lay watching the Bogle Thorn and the Little Green Man's Well, to which some one had to go at least once a day for water. Several times already the Little Green Man had had to fight for his life. But he was a good shot with the little fairy bow-and-arrows—the ones tipped with chips of flint—youknow? ("We know!" came from all the children in a breath.) Besides, Father Green Man was so tough when you had him that the Ugly Gray Dwarf thought twice, and even three times, before tackling him. For although he had no heart to pierce, but only a cold, cold stone out of the bottom of a well instead, the heads of the tiny chip arrows came off where they hit him and annoyed him fearfully, wandering about his system and tickling up unexpected organs. So that at long and last he got to know that he had better give the Little Green Man a wide berth.
But when he got married, and children began to patter up and down the dainty little turning staircase of the Bogle Thorn, the Gray Dwarf rubbed his knotted clawy hands together, and grumbled over and over to himself—"Fresh Meat! Fresh Meat!! Fresh Meat!!!" And if he did not laugh, it is certainly reported that he chuckled to himself, like thunder among the hills very far away.
But of all who went about the passages and ups-and-downs of the Bogle Thorn, there was none so reckless as Little Rooty. He was just as rambling, rampageous a boy as any I know! (Here Father looked at us, and Hugh John nodded at Sir Toady, who nodded back, to show that both considered the other as "catching it.") More than once the Little Green Man had even taken a little green switch, and—well, it just happened the same, so there is no use entering intothat. But, in spite of all, Rooty would go off foraging where he had no business to, and that came quite near to being the end of Little Rooty, who would not "take a telling," and forgot all about the little green switch as soon as he had stopped smarting—where he frequently smarted.
But one dreamy afternoon, when even the bumble-bees fell asleep and only gurgled in the deep fox-glove bells, when his father was lying on the green couch in the parlor, and his mother was telling the others tales about "humans" in a shady green place on the tree-top, Little Rooty slipped away off down-stairs, twenty-five flights to the cellar door where they took in the winter's fuel—that is, fir-cones chopped small, which make the best fires in the world, especially in Green Tree-top Land where fuel is a scarcity, and one has to be careful not to overheat the chimney, because of the insurance people. Well, Little Rooty found the door all right, and after having touched the spring, he went out on the face of the moor. The loch was shining beneath him, but sleepily too. And it looked so warm and bright that Little Rooty forgot all about what he had been told—the Ugly Gray Dwarf, the big black pot swinging on three poles in front of the Grisly Den, with the water just coming to the boil within it. And Rooty ran as hard as ever he could, without ever taking a minute to shut the cellar door. He jumped and shouted, and almost tumbled into Woodhall Loch just as he was, which would have spoiled his clean new suit of gossamer green velvet that his mother had finished that morning, and given him because it was just six months to Christmas, when he got his thicker winter one.
However, he did manage to get them off, and was just getting ready to plunge into the nice cool water, when the stranded log, on which he had been sitting taking off his stockings, sat up in its turn and stretched out a kind of wizened claw that caught Little Rooty by the middle and held him in the air, kicking and screaming. Then two horny warty lids winked up, and two eyes like cold gravy looked at him—oh, so coldly and hatefully! It was the Ugly Gray Dwarf, and he had been lying waiting for Little Rooty all the afternoon. Then Rooty thought of everything his father had told him, and wished it had never felt so hot and stuffy and bumble-bee-y inside the house, and he resolved that if he got off this time, nothing would ever induce him to disobey his parents again. He even wished he was back in the wood-cellar, with his father getting the little green switch down off the shelf. Positively he thought he could have enjoyed it. Of course Rooty was the first little boy who ever felt like that, but he did not have a very long time in which to repent, and, indeed, it mattered very little to the Gray Dwarf whether he did or not. That hideous brute just pinched him all over to see how fat he was, gurgling approbation all the time of Little Rooty's "ribs" and "chines" and "cuts off the joint"—all of which Rooty had always liked very much, but had never before thought of in so intimate a connection with himself.
Meanwhile, in the little house of the Bogle Thorn, its walls wainscoted with green silk from a fairy Liberty's, its ceilings done in Grass of Parnassus with sprigs and tassels of larch, the afternoon world slept on. But the Little Green Woman paused in her long drowsy tale-telling to the children in the shady corner of the Roof Garden. She thought she heard a cry, so faint and far away that it might have been the squeak of a field-mouse scuttling away from a weasel among the grass roots.
Then a sudden thought struck her like a knife.
"Where is Rooty? Who saw Rooty last? Toppy, you run and look over the pricklements and see if you see Rooty. I thought I heard him cry."
Toppy ran to the green wall of thorn, and was just in time to see the Gray Dwarf toss poor Little Rooty over his shoulder (or at least the knotted crotch of a tree which served him as a shoulder), and away with him to his Grisly Den on the face of the moorland. Toppy just managed to scream, and then his mother ran and caught him, or it might very well have been all over with Little Toppy. By the time the Little Green Man was wakened off the green sofa, and had understood what they were saying (for the entire family talked at once, as is mostly the case with united families), he ran hastily up to the Roof Garden, and saw the Gray Dwarf, very little and flat on the face of the heath, just like a splotch of mildew. And on his shoulder there was a spot of green, hardly visible, which the father knew at once for his Little Rooty. But he did not scold—at least not then. He went for his fairy bow, made tiny like a catapult—not hurrying, you know, but going so fast that it felt as if the wind was rising all over the house of the Bogle Thorn. The Little Green Man dipped each arrow-point—that is, the flint part of it—into a kind of green stuff like porridge, made from hemlock and the berries of deadly nightshade, with other pleasant and effective things only known to the Little Green People. He took great care not to let any drip about, and looked closely to see if there were any scratches on his hands. For it was quite unusual stuff, and precious. So he did not want to waste any of it. He needed it all for that mildewy spot crawling over the moorland towards the Grisly Cave with the green dot on its shoulder which was his own Rooty.
Perhaps, being exceptionally good children,youare not sorry for naughty Rooty. ("Oh, yes, we are! We are!") But, anyway, his father was sorry for him, though all the time he was promising him the best "hiding" he had ever had in his life when he got him safe back again. ("Bet he never got a whack!" said Sir Toady, who is an authority on the subject.) So, locking the children in and putting the key in his pocket, the Little Green Man and his wife went away over the moorland to look for the Ugly Gray Dwarf. The man did not want the woman to come. But she begged of him, weeping, saying that she would go "human" if she were left (and among the Green People that is a terrible word, and a yet more terrible thing[1]). So in the end the Little Green Man let her come.
Then she wanted to go direct to the cave, but her husband, who had had a lot of experience, showed her how impossible and foolish that was. For the Gray Dwarf would just lie down behind a big bowlder and wait for them. Then he would stun them with a log or strangle them with his long twisty fingers as they went by.
So instead they went all the way round by John Knox's Pulpit and the Folds Firs, that they might turn the flank of the enemy, and so come at his cave by a way he would never expect. It was a narrow cleft between two rocks up which they had to come—the Little Green Man and his woman. They crawled and crawled, noiseless as earth-worms on a plowed field. All the while the eyes of the Little Green Man shot out small sparkles of fire, though the lids of them were closed so that they showed like slits in a drying plaster wall.
After a long climb they looked over a ridge of many bowlders and much heather—the Little Green Man and his woman close behind him. And at the sight they saw there the wife would have screamed out and run forward. For she was a real woman, you see, though little and green. Only her husband was prepared for her, knowing, after so many years, exactly what she would do. So he first put the palm of his hand across her mouth to keep in the scream, and next gave her the pouch of arrow-heads to hold. Then with a pair of tweezers made of bent wood he lifted the little poisoned flakelets of flint and dropped each into a split in the arrow-head. Then his wife deftly bound each of them about with green cord—for that washerpart of the business. She forgot about screaming when she had anything to do.
Then the Little Green Man peered cautiously from behind a rock, first giving his wife a good push with his foot as a warning—but, of course, you know, kindly.
He found himself looking down into a dell surrounded by many high granite rocks, which made access difficult to the Grisly Cave. The Dwarf was busy about the great black iron pot in which he was getting ready to boil Little Rooty. The Green Man saw his boy stripped of his suit of velvet, and trussed up neck and knee ready for cooking, while every time the Ugly Gray Dwarf approached he gave him a kick in passing to make him more tender, grinning and whetting a carving-knife all the time on a monster "steel" that hung by his side.
So you may believe that in a moment the Green Man had his bow strung taut, and his heart beat as the dull glitter of the arrow-point, from which the green stuff was still dripping, came into line with the hairy throat of the wicked Dwarf.
"CLIP!"
That was the smacking sound of the bow-string going back to the straight.
"IZZ—IK!"
That was the sound of the little elf arrow, dropping green juice from its willow-leaf-shaped head, every drop of which was death.
The "IK!" was when the elf shaft struck the Gray Dwarf and the point broke off in his throat. He said nothing for a moment, but the knife that was in his hand to cut up Little Rooty with clattered on the stones, while he himself fell with a "squelch" like a big heap of wet clothes thrown down on the laundry floor on washing-day morning.
Then they cut Little Rooty's bonds, and took him home on his father's back, his mother carrying the bow and the precious bag of arrow-heads. But instead of the sound beating his father had promised him, they gave Rooty (and all the other children) corn-cake and bramble jam, nut paste, raspberry short-bread, and heather honey made into toffee. They danced on the tree-tops all the night long, and illuminated all the windows of the Bogle Thorn with glow-worms—who, in consideration of the circumstances, gave their servicesgratis. As for the Gray Dwarf, they never bothered any more about him, and I dare say if you care to go up by the Grisly Cave at the end of Deep Dooms Wood on the right, as you turn to the Falls of Drumbledowndreary, you may find his bones unto this day.
The end of the story of the Little Green Man, as Father told it for Fifteen Years, anyway.
Hugh John set about his task of seeing Elizabeth Fortinbras in his own way. He chose his own time—a pleasant blowy afternoon when in all the vale of Edam there was nothing much doing. A sleepy place, Edam, on such a day—the morning calm, the forenoon disturbed only by a rattling red farm cart or two come in to bring meal and take back guano, then the afternoon drowned in the Lethe of a Scottish village in full summer-time. Hugh John looked in at the shop to inquire about the wasps. They had bothered Elizabeth a good deal at first, but Hugh John had devised traps with great ingenuity, though little success, before he thought of a hanging curtain of blue and green beads in the doorway which his father had brought back from Spain. It had lain in the garret ever since, and Hugh John simply appropriated it for the use of Elizabeth Fortinbras.
But Butcher Donnan, returning to a waspless shop, was brought up standing on the threshold—his mouth agape, his eyes stocky in his head, and his hand mutely demanding explanations from "Mary-and-the-Saints."
I think in her heart Elizabeth Fortinbras was a little afraid. Not only had no such article ever been seen in Edam, but it was out of the power of Edam and the Edamites to conceive such a thing as a door made of large blue and green beads, which they had to lift up and let down behind them, with the clashing of castanets before a play-acting booth.
Happily Hugh John was there, sitting calmly in the back kitchen watching Mrs. Donnan making currant short-bread.
"Hugh John!" Elizabeth Fortinbras called out, with, it must be owned, a little trouble in her voice.
"Certainly; come in, Mr. Donnan!" said Hugh John courteously, running to hold the trickling, clicking curtain aside for the ex-butcher to pass. "A little curious till you get used to it, don't you think, Mr. Donnan? But it will stir Edam. It will draw custom, and—what I put it up for—keep out the wasps and bluebottles! Oh, yes, my father brought it from Spain. It is quite an ordinary thing there. Indeed, I got the idea from him."
"But," said Butcher Donnan, slowly recovering his speech, "I must see your father about the price of it to-morrow—if I am to keep it."
"My father—sellthat?" said Hugh John, coldly surprised. "He would as soon eat it!"
"But I can't take it from you, young master. It may be a valuable article."
"Take it—who asked you to take it?" demanded Hugh John. "I gave it to Elizabeth Fortinbras myself as a present on the occasion of her adoption, and if you want her as a permanence, I am afraid you must take the bead curtain along with her!"
"What, she has consented?" cried Butcher Donnan, forgetting everything.
But Mrs. Donnan, who was listening, put the short-bread into the oven quickly, and came out. She had begun to learn the tones of Hugh John's voice. She understood at once.
"My daughter!" she cried, and, opening wide her arms, kissed her. Butcher Donnan paused a moment, uncertain, and then, nudging his wife: "I ought to, I know," he said, "but just you do it for me—the first time." So Mrs. Donnan kissed Elizabeth again, and the Butcher wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, as if he had just had something good to drink. Then they looked about for Hugh John to make him share in the family joy, but that young gentleman, guessing ahead something of their intention, had disappeared with his usual thoroughness and absence of fuss. Some recognition from Elizabeth, privately bestowed, he was in no way averse to, the time being dusky and the place far from the haunts of men. But at mid-afternoon, opposite the railway station, and behind a green and blue bead curtain to which Edam had not yet awakened—on the whole, it is small wonder that Hugh John decided upon the better part of valor.
Safe in his cave on the hillside, he wiped his heated brow and congratulated himself on his escape. Perhaps he would not have rejoiced quite so much had he known that Sir Toady, entering at that moment in quest of gratuitous toffee scrapings, found himself at once heir to all the affection which was really his brother's due. Sir Toady accepted such things as they came in his way, much as a cat drinks from stray cream-jugs, but without giving particular thanks for them. His motto, slightly changed from the rhyming proverb, was ever—